Resurrection
by Alasse
Summary: The healing of George Weasley begins, as well as the deconstruction of Fred Weasley's legacy. CONTAINS DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILERS!
1. Chapter One: Divide and Conquer

A/N: This is a basic requiem for Fred Weasley-I have no idea how long it's going to be-probably until I feel better. I have no idea of the direction that it's going to take or any minor details like that. Again, I'm just going to write until I feel better.

He knew when it happened. He didn't even know how to explain it, to Lee, to Ginny, to his parents, or even to himself, but he knew when it happened. Something inside of him withered and died, almost as if he'd had butterflies in his stomach, and they were gone in an instant. One second he was fully alive, vibrantly alive, tasting in the air as if he'd never breathed before and then-gone.

The noise in his ears dimmed and he fell to his knees. Somewhere above him he could hear voices shouting at him, he even thought that he might recognize Angelina's voice shrieking, but he ignored her. He ignored everything except that which was not there-that happy light feeling that he always had. The one that assured him that no matter what, he would always have a partner in every single class. That he'd always have someone to understand exactly what he was thinking, even without speaking. He was vaguely aware of curses hitting the floor around him, of feet stampeding around him, and of voices shrieking, until everything was quiet again, save for a small buzzing in his ears-well, ear now, wasn't it?

George got up, pushing himself up off of the familiar stone floor that he'd fallen on _so many times_ throughout his school career and shakily started to walk towards the Great Hall. He could hear voices calling after him, but they didn't matter now…Nothing mattered now…

The buzzing grew louder inside his head, almost as if his brain deliberately wanted to prevent him from hearing what it was that was being said around him. He looked at the people, many of them his former schoolmates, and noted their injuries in a calm, clinical way. He wasn't interested in them. No, he could see what he was interested in further down the Great Hall, at the place where all the bodies were laying. The bright red hair acted as a beacon for him, and he was as helpless as a moth to the flame. The world seemed to shrink around him until it was just as if he was walking down a small hallway towards the flickering red hair, so _goddamn_ much like his own. His footsteps echoed oddly in his ears until he stopped.

He'd known of course, known it from the second that it happened. But that didn't stop him from hoping; from praying to a God that he knew did not exist. And he knew that God did not exist, because if He did, then Fred could not be here, laying before him, his face so empty and black and dead, oh no dead, _please no_ I'll do anything, not dead, let it be anyone else, let it be me, just _please not Fred…_

He supposed that he fell to the ground. He couldn't remember a thing. All he knew was that his twin's face was as empty as a blackboard wiped clean, that there would never be another snicker, identical to his own, to come from that mouth, that from now on he was alone, desperately, completely, terrifyingly, alone.

He was almost looking down on himself, kneeling at Fred's head, his forehead resting against Fred's, fitting perfectly together. His mother came, threw herself down upon both her slain boys, because they were both dead after all, weren't they? His father didn't even attempt to say anything, not because this moment was best reserved for silence, but because his tongue was cleaved to the roof of his mouth. As much as the twins exasperated him, infuriated him, he'd always known that they would be there for a laugh if you needed them. They were perfection itself, the ultimate triumph of a theory of duality. Now that certainty, that wonderful predictability was ripped from their world and it was left barren.

He could see Percy embracing Bill, sobbing like he was a little boy again, Ginny clutching Charlie, her face buried in his chest. Ron was standing alone, until Hermione came and embraced him. His arms encircled her, but without any real spirit. He was instead looking down on what he thought he'd never see-mirth ended, a spirit snuffed.

George could feel his legs becoming numb, but they weren't really his legs, were they, they were someone else's legs, because he was living someone else's life, because this could not possibly be happening in his life. This could not, would never be happening. He could hear muffled sobbing throughout the hall, and felt a small glimmer of annoyance. Those people had just lost a loved one. He'd lost part of himself, his better half!

Almost on reflex, his hand went to the side of his head and his fingers probed the hole where his left ear used to be. He'd gotten used to the gaping wound, the looks on people's faces when they first beheld the wound, but now he felt like he had the first night when he was flicking dried blood off of his chin and neck.

While Fred was out of the room he took a second to contemplate the wound, turning his head to the side to get a better look. His stomach churned, though he would have to swiftly get over that impulse. He couldn't be throwing up every single time he looked in a mirror. If he combed his hair just right…it would look almost normal.

Just then Fred burst into the room and George guiltily whirled around. But he should have known that it was stupid to lie to Fred; he always found out the truth anyway.

"Well, I know it's bad, but you were always uglier than me anyway," Fred said casually, looking at George's reflection, then his actual twin before clapping him on the back and flinging himself into his bed. George gently fingered the hole and looked at Fred, who was propping himself up on an elbow and casually flipping through an experimental order form. He felt a rush of gratitude for his twin-whole, perfect, and wonderful…

That memory came crashing down on George, making him whimper, and clutch at something, anything solid. His hands landed on Fred's hair, so similar to his own. He felt the desperate need to anchor himself to something solid, before he flew off into the buffets of the wind. He started shaking his head as his whimpers became moans, almost cries of agony. Fred's head moved in a grotesque mockery of his own. There was something cruel about that, though George couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Bright lances of pain flew through his body, and George attempted to crawl into himself, though not releasing his hold on Fred. Perhaps if he held tightly enough he could absorb Fred into himself, try to assimilate what was left. All the while he was thinking _It shouldn't have been him, it should have been me, it was supposed to be me…_

Fred was the clever one, the smart one, the intuitive one. It had been Fred who first suggested the idea for the gift shop, Fred who led all of their illegal expeditions. Fred was the unacknowledged leader, though sometimes George would amaze himself with flashes of brilliance, such as the swamp across an entire castle corridor. But when he thinks about it, if it hadn't been for Fred, he wouldn't have been as good as he was. He would have been good, no doubt about that, but that brilliance, that style, that finesse would have missing from a good deal of pranks.

It shouldn't have been Fred. It shouldn't have been the clever one, the charming one, the bold one, the whole one. It should have been the support, the backup, the maimed one. Poor crippled George with only one ear. It should have been him.

Suddenly his grieving is interrupted by a high cold voice. He knows that he's heard that voice before, but he doesn't bother to listen to what it has to say. Nothing it says now has any semblance on his life. No, his life was ended about twenty minutes ago when Fred Weasley fell down dead. Now all he's going to do for the rest of his miserable existence is to try to bury his forehead into Fred's try to permanently attach it there, and keep up this miserable, pathetic keening noise that seems to come from somewhere in his throat that he thought was eradicated when he was about fourteen.

Now the sobbing and moaning have stopped and he stops whining to wonder why. As much as he was angered by everyone's grief before, now he wants it to come back, he's almost ready to start screaming at them to start crying again. He feels that it's almost sacrilege, them not crying while Fred is lying here on the cold stone floor. How dare they pretend that anything in the world is more important than the death of his brother?

And then he remembers where he's heard that voice before, and a vague series of recollections fall into place. Right. Voldemort. Wants to rule the world, came here to kill them all. It still isn't as important to him as staying with Fred is at the moment. He can tell that something important is happening, but he doesn't care, as selfish as that might sound to everyone who isn't him. Feet are pounding towards the entrance and he hears voices yelling at him, but he ignores them and holds on tighter to Fred's hair.

He finally looks up when someone touches his shoulder. He flinches at the touch and turns to glare at whoever would try to break him from his grief. His lip curls, almost on instinct as he looks into Percy's light blue eyes, now unusually clouded with grief and despair.

"It's Him George," Percy says, trying to choke out the words. George can see that he's forcing out the words, that Percy wants nothing more than to bawl, but he can feel nothing more for his brother than a kind of cold indifference. This is what he feels for the world, so caught up in his own loss that every other life lost feels like a snowflake landing on his skin-discernable, but ultimately insignificant. But Fred's loss has hit him like a boulder in the chest, enough to cripple him, steal his breath, and end his life for all intents and purposes.

"George, it's something about Harry," Ginny says, kneeling beside Percy. Though he might be able to muster enough venom to repel Percy, George somehow cannot bring himself to attack Ginny-something about that glint in her eyes reminds him of Fred-and slowly shakes his head, staring at Fred's impassive face. He tries to form words, but his brain isn't quite functioning on that level yet-he's still trying to find which bits of him still exist, and which have disappeared along with Fred.

He looks over at Ginny again, and sees that her eyes are bloodshot and that there are silent tears leaking down her face. He vaguely remembers that Harry is someone important, not just to the world, but to him, but he can't exactly remember why he should care, not when Fred is lying here dead and his entire world has ended, because the person that he has spent every single waking moment with is no longer with him and for the first time in his life he is utterly and completely alone.

Something about that last thought hits him, and, much as it pains him, he drags his forehead away from Fred's. The Great Hall is deserted, save for him and the bodies. Even they seem to have pushed themselves to the side, anticipating what would happen next.

And George knew that it wasn't over yet, that even after everything that he had already lost, he still had everything left to lose. He looked down at Fred and mapped out every single contour of his face, the faint laugh-lines that had not yet matured; wrinkles that until now he never knew existed. It suddenly hits him, as he is staring intently at his twin's face that Fred is _old, _much older than he should be by rights, and George wonders whether he himself looks just as aged when the grins are wiped off of the faces.

From the entrance to the school George can hear some minor sobs and whimpers, and then, in one loud cry, the entire world splits apart into an explosion of grief and despair. At this moment, he is unable to stop himself and he throws back his head and howls at the ceiling, still enchanted, even after what it's been through. His own voice is lost in the mass outpouring of horror on the front lawn that he knows heralds the beginning of something horrible. He was still wailing at the ceiling when a very distinct voice disturbs him from his mad, obsessive release of grief.

"Pathetic."

George immediately shut his mouth, his heart pounding in his chest. He was going mad. The shock of seeing Fred's body had driven him over the edge, because this could not be happening. In a million years, it could not be happening. His entire body trembling, he looked up to see Fred's familiar face looking down at him.

He was wearing that slightly critical look that he got when George failed to deliver on a great idea that they were developing. It said plainly "You can do so much better than this!" George looked up at Fred and mouthed several sentences, none of them actually making the trip out of his mind. Fred looked critically down at him, impatiently crossing his arms and drumming his fingers on his arm. George finally managed to choke a word out.

"What?"

Fred rolled his eyes and looked away while George struggled to his feet. George faced his twin, their eyes perfectly aligned. "You. Are. Pathetic." Fred tapped George's head with his fist to make sure that every word made the trip into his brain. "Bloody wanker you are. I leave for about two minutes and look at you. Absolute lump of dung, you are."

"Hey," George said slowly, feeling that this wasn't quite fair. "You're not a ghost?" he asked suspiciously. Of course Fred couldn't be a ghost. He had just hit him repeatedly, and rather painfully, with his knuckles.

"Don't be daft," Fred said, clearly irritated that George wasn't yet catching on. "Listen, this is all rather touching and everything, but you're being a bit of a prat. So go out there and fight." George mouthed in astonishment at Fred.

"Don't tell me what to do!" he finally came up with. "You're dead! You can't tell me what to do!"

"I may be dead," Fred said, turning his back and beginning to saunter away, "But at least I'm not _holey,_ eh Saint George?" He turned his head to let George see a wicked grin, and then casually prowled off, his hands in his pockets. George snickered a little bit at the dig before realizing that Fred was about to leave him for the second time that night.

"No!" he shouted and launched himself after Fred. Fred's retreating back didn't seem to hear him and kept on walking until it was out of the Great Hall. By the time that George had gotten there, the corridors were deserted, and he was only breathing figure that stood there. "Fred!" George called helplessly, but he knew then, that there would never be an answer.

But now that chamber in which he had been existing for as long as he could remember opened, and he, for the first time, could hear the screams that came from the grounds. Remembering Fred's words, George pulled out his wand and started to jog out to where the screams seemed the loudest.

It was like walking into Armageddon. Jets of light were flying through the air, sometimes hitting people and sometimes not. And then, straight out of Ron's nightmares came the spiders. Giant spiders, their legs almost as big as he was, advanced on the battle, no doubt drawn by the screams and the stench of death. As one, Death Eaters, and Harry's supporters screamed and fled towards the castle. Over the noise of their retreat George heard Hagrid shout out "WHERE'S HARRY? WHERE'S HARRY?"

Had something happened to Harry? George wondered, but before he had time to properly think that over, he was slammed to the ground. There was a sickening crack as his head hit the stone and he had to lay there for a few moments, just so that he could regain his equilibrium.

"I thought that we already killed you," the Death Eater pondered as he stood before George. He thought for a moment, while George slowly rolled onto his side and feebly tried to push himself to his feet. "Oh, that was the other one, wasn't it?" he asked, snickering as he recalled the experience. "I should have known," he laughed, toeing George in the chest so that he flew back on the floor. George wheezed up at him, glaring venom from underneath his eyelids. How _dare_ he talk about Fred? It was little more than blasphemy. "He had both of his ears."

"Oh don't look at me like that," the Death Eater sneered, upon seeing George's look. He snickered and raised his wand. "You'll be with him soon enough." George makes the attempt to get back up, but then a thought smacks into his head with the force of a Bludger. Why bother? The Death Eater-Yaxley?-is making a strange kind of sense. Why fight the inevitable? And he'll be able to be with Fred again, and the world will be right again-because it's just not fair that he has to exist, this little half-person. They are the Weasley twins. They are Fred and George, and nothing will change that, which is why George doesn't even bother getting up off of the floor or trying to block the curse that he knows is coming.

"Don't you dare!" a familiar voice screams, and Yaxley is blown against the wall, where he lies, stunned for a few short moments. It's enough time for Lee Jordan to come and grab George's arms, pulling the reluctant twin to his feet. "Oh God, for a second I thought you were…" Lee looks around George for a moment and then back at George. "Where's Fred?"

George shakes his head, unable to say the words, but Lee has been friends for him long enough to read the emotion in his eyes. George can see him crumpling, unable to believe it, and he wants to join him there on the cold stone floor and do nothing but cry for the rest of his undoubtedly short life, but he senses more than sees Yaxley rising.

"Stupefy!" he yells, pointing his wand at Yaxley, but Yaxley blocks his curse easily and goes on the offensive again. Now Lee is beside George, a fierce intensity that George has never seen before on his face. George sends another hex at Yaxley, and suddenly he feels so dangerous, so possessed at that moment that he goes slightly mad. He takes the offensive, backing Yaxley into a corner, spells shooting out of his wand at an alarming rate.

For the first time George can sense fear coming off of his opponent and he feeds on it, drinks it in hungrily and dives forward for more. He has completely lost himself, and after he casts a jinx he realizes that he is laughing just as madly as Bellatrix Lestrange. He is relishing in the fact that he has gone mad, loving the detached feeling that he has from the rest of the world because he knows that this means that he will never again have to feel pain, guilt, or regret. His peals of laughter are lost in the din of the furious battle, but he can hear them, and George knows, as he laughs harder from watching Yaxley slam into the floor yet again, that he is not quite all right.

But unfortunately, there is only so much that a human body can take, and Yaxley is soon unconscious, leaving George feeling oddly empty with no opponent in front of him. But all of his concerns are blown out of his head when the Shield Charm is erected. He feels the force of it blow past him and curiously turns to see who could have done it. It is only then that he sees Harry standing in front of Voldemort. And it strange, but for some reason Harry looks like Harry, but he also looks like Dumbledore, and he looks like the pictures that George has seen of his parents, and he looks like Sirius and Remus, and strangely enough, because there really isn't any physical resemblance at all between the two of them-he looks extraordinarily like Fred.

George is so caught up in pondering this strange turn of events that he completely misses the words leading up to the exchange between the two. He looks at it, his breath catching in his throat as he realizes that this is the moment that he's been waiting for his entire life to happen, this is it, this is where it all ends. This moment right here-this is why Fred died.

It's anticlimactic, if he has to admit it to himself. After all of the hype, Voldemort just falls to the ground limply, like he was a puppet with no strings. And as one, everyone in the hall surges forward to encompass Harry in their hungry arms, and he just stands there, wand hanging from a limp hand, a shocked smile slowly sliding onto his face. George does not move. He cannot take part in the euphoria. Instead, he returns to the forgotten, the bodies.

He quickly finds Fred again, the ginger hair is good for something after all. He stares down at the body, trying to figure out what exactly he feels. Mostly, he just wishes that he could be fighting more Death Eaters, but they seem to have all disappeared when Voldemort died. He regrets it in a small way. Battle apparently is the only place where he can feel completely normal, if you classify normal as a raving lunatic.

"Georgie?" His mother comes up behind him, and in her wake there are several small explosions of applause. George turns and looks at his mother's worried brown eyes. There is triumph hidden there, and joy, but overall, there is the desperate, inexpressible loss that George feels. It threatens to overwhelm Molly Weasley; it has already taken George Weasley. "George?" she asks again, her hand soft on his shoulder, and despite himself and all his attempts to just be strong for once and take it like a man, he turns, leans down, and buries his head into her shoulder and sobs.

He clutches his mother to him, never wanting to let her go, and feels her arms enveloping him, safe and warm, and loving. He doesn't know how long he spends there, but he knows that somewhere along the way his father comes and wraps him in an embrace as well. It seems that the tears will never stop flowing, which George knows is ridiculous because there has to be a limit on tears. There's a limit on everything else, so why not tears? He finally pulls away from his mother and wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

"Thanks Mum," he chokes out in a shaky breath. She tearfully nods and George can see some of the anguish extinguished in her eyes. He knows that none of it is gone in his soul.

As if on one signal, everyone looks around the Hall. It suddenly hits everyone that there are entirely too many people here and Hogsmede is not nearly large enough to hold all of them. Then, the solution rises from everyone and no one at once. Why not stay at Hogwarts? It is, after all, large enough to hold all the remaining students, their families and friends. George silently goes up with the rest of his family to the Gryffindor common room. For the first time in his memory the Fat Lady does not ask for a password. She silently lets the portrait swing open, admitting all of the Gryffindors, past and present, who have come to seek refuge in the common room for the night.

George collapses soundlessly on one of the couches and turns so that the earless side of his head is facing the world, making it difficult for him to hear anything. Everyone understands and they give him a wide berth while George tries to wipe his mind clean. Perhaps he'll wake up above the shop and none of this will have happened. Fred will be hitting him liberally about the head and asking why he always sleeps so late and George will sleepily yawn, roll over and go back to sleep.

He leaves one eye cracked open, just to keep an eye on everything that is happening around him. He sees his parents sitting together, giving him concerned looks, sometimes crying silently, sometimes just holding each other. He sees Bill holding Fleur, his scarred face troubled. He surprises himself by feeling a slight sort of amusement when he sees Ron and Hermione, both sitting together and holding hands. Every now and then Ron brushes back Hermione's hair and nuzzles her neck. It's somewhat sweet, and rather nauseating. Harry and Ginny are sitting quietly together, which alone by itself would not be that disturbing, but Harry keeps on shooting George guilt-stricken glances that make George's insides want to curl up and migrate somewhere around his toes.

At one point brave, brave, brave Katie come up to him and asks him hesitantly whether he wants to come sit with her, Angelina, Alicia, and Oliver. The look that George gives her in return is all the answer that Katie needs and she retreats to the relative safety of the other side of the common room. Though she and the rest of his former Quidditch team keep on sending him furtive looks George pretends like he doesn't see them. Somehow, he's not quite sure, he manages to fall asleep.

He feels someone poking him and rolls over to see who it is. He is confronted by Fred, his face shining excitedly. "Come on!" Fred whispers, grabbing his elbow and dragging him out of bed. George shivers as his bare feet hit the cold floor and bemusedly follows Fred out of the dormitory and into the common room. The last lingering sparks are still glowing feebly, but everyone has gone to bed long ago. George looks around and scratches the back of his head as he looks at Fred, who is pacing around the common room, his face alight with a wonderful secret that he'll share with George as soon as he's finished digesting it himself.

"What?" George finally asks, and Fred stops pacing and looks at him with barely contained excitement, like a mug of butterbeer that is close to foaming over.

"I've figured out the password!" Fred whispers to George and George immediately goes to stand right next to Fred, their heads pressing together. Together they reverently hold a piece of crumpled, stained parchment. "At least I think I have." He brought out his wand and tapped the parchment, whispering, "I do swear that I want to do mischief."

The parchment feebly flutters in their hands as spindly writing appears across it.

Mr. Moony would like to offer his encouragement to Mr. Fred Weasley and suggests that he try adding solemnly to his phrasing.

Mr. Padfoot heartily agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to acknowledge that the Messer. Weasley should be the true holders of the Marauder's Map.

Mr. Prongs would like to register his admiration for the way in which the Map came into his possession, and wishes to add that Mr. Fred and George Weasley may try adding that they are up to no good.

Mr. Wormtail congratulates Mr. Fred and George Weasley and agrees with Mr. Prongs in the question of phrasing.

The writing disappeared, leaving a perfectly blank surface once more. George looked up at Fred in wonder. "Well, that's new," he whispered reverently.

"I was just trying out different combinations of words, and I hit on something like that, and the writing just came up. Don't you see George, they want us to find out how the map works, and they want us to have it! All we have to do is to prove ourselves worthy and then we've got it!"

George bent low over the map, trying to work out a solution. "I solemnly swear," he began, and the map gave a faint jiggle, "That I wish to do no good." Faint ink stains spread out over the map. Fred looked at George in wonder.

"I think you've almost got it!" he whispered excitedly. George ran his fingers through his hair, bit his lip, and tried again, remembering the words that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs had told them.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he whispered, tapping the map. From where his wand hit the map ink lines spread out, revealing an ornate banner.

Fred read it aloud, his voice shaking, hardly daring to believe what he was reading. "Mr. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are pleased to present the Marauder's Map!" He looked up at George, his eyes dancing. "Do you have any idea what this means?"

"Hogwarts is ours?" George asked, a small smile lighting up the corners of his mouth. Fred laughed and clapped George on the back, dancing around the common room delightedly.

"Got it in one! The poor Slytherins will never know what hit them!" Fred crowed. The twins stomped around the common room, whooping in delight, completely ignorant of any sleeping bodies upstairs, until Percy came to interrupt them.

"Excuse me," he said in a low deadly voice. "Some of us are trying to sleep." Fred and George looked at each other, before rushing Percy, one of them clamped on either side.

"But others of us have important things to do," Fred began, before George took up the strain.

"Very important things," he finished, marching Percy down to the common room, while Percy struggled helplessly between the twins. "And your caterwauling is just going to interrupt those folks from sleeping!" he added in a shocked voice.

"So you'd best let those blokes get on with their lives," Fred said, closing the door up to the boys dorms and locking it with his wand. It took Percy a moment to realize what had happened before he was banging at the door, and demanding that they let him in, or else. Fred and George snickered, before staring at the map.

"This," Fred said grandly, holding the parchment carefully in his hands, "Is going to be the secret to our success."

With a start, George awoke. It was completely dark now, and all that he could hear were the quiet sighs of people in the midst of slumber. He knew where he was going before he ended up there. He rose off of the sofa and walked out of the common room, through the deserted halls. For the first time in his life he was not dodging those halls, nearly missing Filch by an inch. It was also the first time that he was wandering the school corridors alone after curfew had hit. But he wouldn't be alone for much longer.

His feet took him to the Great Hall as he knew they would. He walked to the body and sat down beside it, briefly taking one of its hands and holding it in his own. It was heavy, limp, and cold, and George dropped it almost the second that he'd picked it up. This was grotesque. This thing was not his brother. Fred was alive and warm, his eyes always sparkling with some new idea. His hands were fists, ready to pummel into someone's ear, not dead weights that dropped to the ground with a soft thud.

Suddenly, George felt the darkness close around him, oppressive and silent, and he almost suffocated upon it. He was the living, intruding upon the dead's territory and he felt their longing and resentment rising up against him. He moved closer to Fred until he was touching his side. Sharp lances of moonlight shot through the windows, illuminating certain faces, faces that he knew, and faces that he felt he should probably recognize. A moonbeam fell directly on Fred's face, bringing into sharp relief that which George had failed to notice before-the complete and total lack of expression. Fred was a blank slate, his mouth a straight line, his eyes, relaxed and closed. George let out a dry sob and lay across his brother's chest.

George remembered when he was five and it was storming outside. The ghoul, no doubt disturbed by the turmoil outside had been causing more of a ruckus than usual, causing George to wake up and cry out in fear. "It's all right," Fred had told him, but his eyes were wide and anxious as well. "Come here," he had said, and George had grabbed his bear and gladly clambered into bed with Fred. They sat together, shoulders touching all night, trying to keep the other awake.

In the morning their mother had come in and found them both asleep on Fred's bed, Fred lying on his back and George on his side, his face buried into Fred's shoulder, his arm thrown across Fred's chest.

It was how Minerva McGonagall found the twins the next morning when she went into the Great Hall to pay her respects to the slain.


	2. Chapter Two: Aftermath

A/N: Thanks for all of your support! It really means a lot! Just one minor canon note-in the books, the twins are described as being 'stocky'-after seeing the Phelps twins play them, I just can't picture Fred and George being short. So in here they're always going to be described as tall. Thanks!

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

He remembered waking up the morning after the battle in the Great Hall, every joint aching from sleeping on the stone floor. His body is clinging desperately to Fred, frantic in its need to not be separated. His fingers curl and close around Fred's sweater, gathering part of it up in a big bunch. He buries his face into Fred's side, trying to ignore whoever it is that is trying to remove him from Fred. Whoever they are, they need to burn in hell for all eternity.

"No," George groans, clinging tighter to Fred. He shakes his head, breathing in the slightly musty scent from Fred's sweater, the fabric scratching his nose. "No, no, no, no, no," he says, closing his eyes tightly.

"Mr. Weasley," a gentle voice says, and someone grips his shoulder, attempting to wrest him from the body. "Mr. Weasley!" the voice says, a bit firmer, but George can detect a note of familiarity in the voice. He grudgingly turns to see who it is, and is confronted with his former Transfiguration teacher's worried face.

"George?" she asked him softly, and George started at the use of his first name. He'd been under the impression that McGonagall did not know any of her students' first names, especially when it came to the Weasley twins. To her they were always "Mr. Weasley!" It didn't matter that both of them came running when she called out their name, because she didn't really want just one of them, she wanted both. It is this, her use of his proper name, more than anything else, that makes George get up to his feet and face his former Head of House.

"You should get back to the common room," she told him quietly, taking his elbow in a gentle grip and maneuvering him towards the door. George looks over his shoulder at Fred and stops in his tracks. McGonagall, for all of her formidable stares, is pathetically less physically powerful than he is, and futilely pushes him towards the door.

"I can't leave here," he tells her, his feet firmly digging into the stone floor. McGonagall looks into his face and calmly accepts his decision.

"Please come up to the common room soon," she says quietly before she leaves. "Your family will no doubt be frantic as to your whereabouts."

"They'll know where to find me," George mumbles, and turns back to the bodies. It's strange-he's been so determined to not separate himself from Fred that he has not even considered the possibility that others might have died in the fight. He notes the bodies of Remus and Tonks with a muted concern, pausing to consider what might happen to their son. Eh, he'll live with Harry probably, start off a whole other cycle.

George looked up as the sound of people approaching reached his ears. He could not deal with being with people right now; it quite simply wasn't going to happen. He looked desperately for a route of escape, and lost for a better idea, threw himself behind a tapestry that was, for the most part, still intact. He stood against the cool stone wall and tried not to breathe too obtrusively; terrified that someone might see him. Then he would have to look at the pity in their eyes, and also the half-hidden reproach: "We won! Voldemort's dead! The world is safe again! Be happy!" The last thing in this world that George Weasley needed was someone telling him that he should be rejoicing.

To his horror, the footsteps stopped right where Fred's body was lying. George could hear dry, heaving sobs and someone murmuring softly, trying to comfort the person crying. He bit his lip, wondering if he should try to see whoever it was that was crying, but then decided that solitude was best.

"Damn him!" Someone finally said, and George recognized the voice as that of Angelina. The person with her then had to be either Katie or Alicia. "Why did he have to be so stupid?"

"He wasn't stupid," Katie said soothingly, and George had to indignantly agree with her on that point. How dare Angelina say that Fred was stupid? Although, he had been wondering the same thing himself…Why hadn't Fred stayed with him? If Fred had stayed with him, as was their original plan, he would have been able to look out for him, would have been able to protect him, push him out of the way, would have been able to _do something_ to stop this from happening.

"He was though," Angelina said miserably, though George thought that he could detect the slightest hint of a laugh through her tears. "Do you know that even though they were supposed to be in hiding he kept on writing me letters?" George recalled those times when Fred would shut himself up, away from any other members of the Order that were with them, for hours at a time. When he emerged he would have this smug, satisfied look on his face. George pestered him to tell him what was going on, but Fred merely smiled at him with an infuriating grin. Thinking back on it, George could safely say that this was the only thing that Fred had never told him. "If any of those letters had been intercepted…" her voice trailed off as she sobbed dryly again.

George felt almost guilty hiding behind the tapestry and listening, but now that he was here there really wasn't anywhere else for him to go. "I just can't believe that he's gone," Angelina said, her voice strangely muffled, as if she was speaking into Katie's shoulder. "I knew we were going to lose people, I'm not daft. But Fred…"

"Has anyone seen George?" Katie asked quietly. "He wasn't in the Common Room when we woke up this morning, and his family doesn't know where he is."

"I don't know," Angelina said, taking a deep breath and attempting to calm herself down. "If I had to hazard a guess I'd say he would be here with Fred. I don't know where he is."

"Do you think…is he going to be all right?" Katie quietly asked. Angelina sighed before answering.

"I don't know," she began. She hesitated, then threw caution to the winds and spoke her mind. "People have always thought of Fred and George as one person. That's wrong, but only up to a point. There's just something about them…did you ever notice that before they said nearly anything they'd look at the other one first? Just a glance, just for a second, but it was always there. You hardly ever saw them apart…I mean, that's unusual, even for twins really, look at the Patil twins."

George cringed behind the curtain. Angelina's words were hitting deeper than she knew. It was true: every time he'd had speak now, he'd always glanced beside him, only to find that no one was there. It felt strangely empty, even now, hiding behind the tapestry. This could have easily been their second year, Fred could have been right beside him, smothering his snickers in his hand and listening to Filch bumble along past where they were hiding.

George had to muffle a sigh of relief as he heard Angelina's footsteps start to move away. Her conversation with Katie swiftly dwindled into little more than quiet murmuring, and then nothing, as they went out of the Great Hall. George was inexpressibly glad to be alone once more. George waited until he was positive that no one else was in the Great Hall, and slid out from behind the tapestry.

"I was wondering how long it was going to take you to come out," a blunt voice said from beside him. George jumped nearly a foot in the air, and then turned to glare at whoever had spoken. Ginny glared back at him, her face pale and drawn, but her eyes determined.

George ran his hand through his hair before speaking. "What're you doing there?" he finally grunted.

"Waiting for you to emerge," she said, walking up to him and looking him in the eyes. "Mum's absolutely terrified George. You couldn't wait?" George felt a spark of anger underneath the fourteen layers of shock, denial, guilt and grief.

He struggled to find a comment cutting enough, and found that his intellect just wasn't up to it this morning. "You wouldn't understand," he finally mumbled, turning his back on Ginny. He hoped that this dismissal would be enough, but he should have known that he was joking. Ginny had, after all, grown up under his and Fred's tutelage.

"What wouldn't I understand?" Ginny asked, coming to stand in front of him. She grabbed his arm to hold him still, while he tried to look everywhere except in her eyes. Eventually he gave up and finally stared at her. Somehow, he couldn't find it in him to be exceptionally cruel. This after all, was the same girl who had helped in their greatest prank at the Burrow, by providing a valuable distraction while they went into Percy's room and systematically rearranged every single paper he owned, and then put a jinx on them, making it impossible for Percy to distinguish what they were, and where they were supposed to go. They'd let it continue until Percy was in tears and their mother was sending sparks out of her wand, she was so angry. George smiled in recollection, and then his smile dimmed as he realized that there would never be anything else like that, ever again. There would be no more secret looks, no conversations held merely with blinks and nearly imperceptible nods-there would be no more laughter. Now, more than ever, George felt as though something quite large and precious had been ripped out of him.

"Just…just forget about it, all right?" he finally said gruffly, pushing past her. Ginny, however, was not to be so easily defeated, and ran after him, finally resorting to clinging to his waist to slow him down. "Ginny, please!" George shouts, but her grip does not slacken any. It takes a second before George can categorize the strange shaking feeling that he has around his midriff, but he finally realizes that Ginny is sobbing into his back.

George turns around and hesitantly puts his arms around his younger sibling. It feels odd, because Ginny hardly ever cries, and she's _never_ cried in his presence until now. Although, his entire world is changing, so why not his little sister? One thing that George has noticed, people seem to be bursting into tears at the drop of a hat lately. He is proud to say, however, that he really does not fit this description. He feels that the flood of tears will come later. Right now the pain is too close, too near, to trivialize with random bursts of sobbing.

"He was my brother too George!" Ginny finally chokes out. With this sentence, she continues sobbing, and George awkwardly pats her on the shoulder. He's proud of his self-control, because he almost spat immediately back out at her _"But he wasn't your twin was he?"_ But it's strange, because when Ginny breaks down, George can feel his hastily constructed defenses crumbling around him, so he really wishes that she would stop crying and just be Ginny once more. After all, this was the girl who barely shed a tear when Harry broke up with her, so why is she crying now?

"He was my brother, and we've lost him, and I don't want to lose you too!" she finally says, burying her face into his chest. She takes a deep shuddering breath and looks at him through bloodshot eyes. "Just…please. Come up to the common room? Everyone's really worried about you."

"All right," George grudgingly agrees. He starts to go up the stairs, when Ginny surprises him by doing something that she hasn't done since she was about seven: she takes his hand in hers and walks with him. It's yet another thing in his world that's changing, but George can't say that he's entirely displeased by this change in events.

His shaky grip with relative apathy comes to a screeching halt however, when the portrait swings open and he is confronted by hundreds of people, completely ridiculous amounts of people. He knows that there really can't be that many in the common room, it's only so big after all, but there are still entirely too many people there. Worst of all, they all seem to be happy, even his family, those hypocrites. The reassurance that he had just found from Ginny disappears, leaving him with only the desire to scream and run as fast as he possibly can.

"George!" his mother cries, and envelops him in a tight hug. Bill claps him on the shoulder and Charlie ruffles his hair. When his mother releases him from her hug George's eyes automatically dart to his side to see what Fred thinks about all of this-then with a sinking feeling he remembers that Fred's not there to comment upon the obvious insanity of their family.

He's beginning to feel suffocated again. Everyone is just too caring, too involved, and too omnipresent. Worst of all, they all seem to think that more of this will help George to feel all right, when he knows that nothing in the world will make him feel all right. He would leave and go back to the shop or somewhere else, but Fred is here, and as long as Fred is somewhere, that's where George is going to be as well.

Angelina, Katie, Alicia and Oliver come up to him, their faces drawn. Whether it's from staying up late last night, worrying about him, or grieving for Fred, George doesn't know and he really doesn't care. All he wants is for them to just forget that he exists so that he can be left alone.

"Are you doing all right?" Katie finally asks softly. George nods shortly, unable to bear the concerned gaze of her blue eyes. Why doesn't anyone understand? Why don't they understand that this isn't like anything that they've gone through, that losing an ear was nothing compared to this? Instead of part of his body ripped away, it's like part of his soul is gone, the part that loved life and that wanted nothing more in the world than to wait for the next prank to be pulled off, hear the shrieks that told you that everything was successful. They'll never understand, he realizes, and he is filled with a slow despair.

They'll never know the agony of having a whole personality, and then to have half of it ripped out of you. They'll never know the pain of having your constant companion torn away from you while you were helpless to do anything. Worse, they'll never know the pain of having your life planned out for you, and then having the certainty and reassurance of always having someone to fall back on ripped away. Because no matter what happened, George always knew that Fred would have some sort of plan, as flawed and half-formed as it might be. Now he was alone, with no one to guide him, because the only person that had ever really understood him was no longer there.

"George?" Katie prods, and he realizes that he's standing in the middle of the common room, and he's not alone. His family and friends are looking at him in concern as his legs start to tremble. His head begins to spin and the room starts to blur around the edges as his breath starts to catch in his throat. _Thank God Fred's not here to see this, I'd never live this one down, _George thinks as his knees buckle and he begins to sag to the floor. He feels Bill's arms close around his chest and he hears Ginny scream his name before the entire world goes dark.

-----------

There are muffled voices all around him, and he softly moans as they pierce the comfortable fog that surrounds his mind. But this moan only makes them talk louder. He attempts to push his ear into the couch in a futile attempt to deafen himself, but this only brings exclamations of excitement.

"I think he's coming around!" Ron shouts. If he could muster up the strength, George would hit him. There is a small stampede of footsteps as the whole world comes to stand beside George Weasley.

"Do you think it's the aftereffects of a spell?" Angelina asked anxiously. From the sound of her voice she was hovering directly over him.

"No, I think it's far more likely that it's just shock," he heard his mother say, although she sounded much too worried. George just wished that he could roll over and go back to sleep, but that would be well nigh impossible with all these people surrounding him. Don't they realize that they're the ones that are doing it all? Why can't they just leave him alone? He wonders if he'll spend the rest of his life living with this exasperation and desperate wish for all the rest of humanity to drop off of the face of the earth.

"I've just never seen anything like that before," Katie whispers, and George thinks that he knows what she's trying to say, because he's feeling it himself. Before today he'd never expected himself to faint. That was just too feeble, too weak, too pathetic. He feels sure that if it had been him killed Fred would not be fainting in the common room or hiding behind tapestries. He would be distraught yes, but happier that Voldemort was defeated and that his mother had shown the Wizarding world what she was made of by killing his most vicious disciple. No, Fred would have taken the blow much better than he was taking it. This revelation, instead of making him want to grow up and become a real man, makes him curl deeper into the couch. Perhaps he can just stay here for the rest of his natural life.

"George?" his mother asks softly, running her fingers through his hair. A small part of him rebels at her treating him like this; he's a grown man for Merlin's sake, not an idiot! Then, his mind rebukes him: _Well, you're acting like a child, so you might as well be treated like one. _"George, I know you can hear me," she says, and George takes a moment to sulk. It appears that after twenty years Molly Weasley has finally learned to tell when her sons are feigning slumber.

He slowly opens his eyes to see his mother's, Angelina's, his father's, Katie's, Ron's, and Lee's concerned faces looking down at him. This was absolutely mortifying. The last time that he'd felt this babyish was when Fred had to help him to the toilet when they were in the process of testing the Puking Pastilles. They'd gotten an ingredient wrong, and though they made him vomit spectacularly, he couldn't stop vomiting long enough to force the other end down. After Fred had levitated it into his mouth, it made absolutely no difference, except that his vomit was now a vivid violet.

He'd stayed in their room at Grimmauld Place the entire night, ignoring the anxious knocks of his mother, Lupin, and Sirius, with Fred at his side, occasionally Vanishing the bucketfuls of vomit that he kept on creating.

"It has to end sometime, right?" he croaked out in between attacks. It was safe to say that he'd never felt as badly as he did just then. Fred raised his eyebrows and shrugged as George leaned over the bucket again. He didn't even know that his stomach could hold what he was depositing into the bucket, although perhaps that was part of the enchantment that they'd put in there: no matter what, the sweet made your body expel everything. "Oh, it's easy for you to sit there," George snapped. "You did the Fainting Fancy. All you did was just sleep for two hours!"

"But just think that's two hours of my life that I'll never get back," Fred said earnestly as George retched yet again. George shakily brought his head back up from the bucket.

"And that's my entire digestive system that I'll never get back," he said shakily.

"Well, I've tried everything," Fred said bracingly. "There's nothing to do but wait until it stops, which I hope will be rather soon seeing as the room smells quite awful now."

"Sorry," George groaned, hoisting himself up by pulling the bucket. Fred shrugged, and started throwing out suggestions for improving the snackboxes, while George continued to vomit all night.

"Do you feel all right?" his mother asked, bringing him back to reality. He slowly nodded; wincing at the painful headache that was now making his head feel like it was close to exploding. He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but she pushed his shoulders, effectively pinning him to the bed. "No, I think it's best if you have a little bit of a lie-down," she said firmly. "We're going to go down to the kitchens and see if the house-elves can make us a little bit of breakfast. Why don't you just stay up here and we'll bring you back some breakfast?"

"I'll stay too," Ginny quickly volunteered. George almost rolled his eyes as, before he left, Harry went over to Ginny and squeezed her hand.

"Oh you prat, it's not like she's going to disappear," he mumbled to himself. "You've got the rest of your bloody lives, don't you?" Finally, everyone piles out of the common room, and George is left lying on the couch with Ginny sitting calmly on the floor, her eyes even with his head.

"They don't mean anything by it," she finally says quietly. "They're just trying to help. They don't know what to say because none of them know what it feels like."

"That's the first intelligent thing that anyone's said all day long," George grunts, pushing himself up on one elbow, then immediately regretting it thirty seconds later as his head begins to split open. He falls back to the soft couch, throwing a pillow over his eyes in an attempt to shut out the world. Ginny quickly tears the pillow off and George winces as her angry face fills his eyes.

"What can we do?" Ginny asks helplessly. "George, I don't know what to do!"

"You can all just leave me alone," George grunted, crossing his arms and staring studiously at the ceiling. Ginny's small snort told him that she had absolutely no idea of doing that, and he turned to look at her. "Look Gin, I know that you want to help, but there's nothing that you can do! Imagine if I ripped off one of your arms, your legs, and a few ribs. Oh, throw in the ear as well just to make everything even. Imagine how it would feel if I did that. Now multiply that pain and the loss by about ten thousand, and you'll get some estimate as to how I feel."

Ginny does not speak for a few moments, and George loves her all the more for it. But when she does finally open her mouth it's to say something that he would give his eyeteeth not to hear.

"They want to hold a memorial service."

He looked over at her, his gorge rising already. "What?"

"McGonagall, Flitwick…pretty much everyone really. It's just that the families are going to…they're going to be going home, and this is going to be our one chance to have everyone here."

George thinks back to Dumbledore's funeral, and how all the Ministry people came who were probably happy to see him go. He thinks about the entire Wizarding world coming to honor those who were lost at the Battle of Hogwarts, people that he knows that Fred's probably hated throughout the years. Roger Davies will be there, Roger who Fred hit with an Instant Scalping Hex in third year, causing all of his hair to vanish for three weeks, leaving nothing but shiny head and some rather unattractive stubble. There would be Penelope, Percy's old girlfriend. Inspired by Hagrid's first choice of textbooks, George had a flash of brilliance and Fred had run with it-with all her books under the same enchantment as the Monster Book of Monsters, poor Penelope's life had been rather miserable for a few weeks. Bookworms were all the same really-even though they knew that death, horror, and destruction awaited, they just couldn't keep themselves away from the musty old pages. It had actually been Hermione that Fred had suggested, but George balked at that idea, and so, Penelope was chosen.

These would be the kind of people attending the memorial for Fred: people who had never liked him, thought he was a nuisance, and were glad to be rid of him. George thought he was going to be sick at the thought of any one of them coming within twenty feet of Fred.

"No, no, no, no, no," he says over and over again until it becomes more of a prayer than anything else. "They can't do that, it's all wrong, the bloody wankers don't even care…" his voice trails off into a helpless whimper as he knows that he can do nothing to change anything. It's not even the kind of people that would come, because with Ginny's help, and maybe even Ron's help, he feels that he can make it at least rather uncomfortable for them to be there. It's the fact that once there's been a memorial service it will be permanent. He'll have to accept that Fred is gone, and no power on this Earth can bring him back. That thought is too painful to even approach at the moment.

Ginny stands up and embraces him, her arms tight around his neck. George puts his arms around her without really noticing what he does. His mind is reeling, gone headlong down the dizzying road to madness, and he is powerless to stop it, even if he wanted to. He doesn't want to think, doesn't want to concentrate on the powerless feeling of separation being much too close, of having someone slam the lid shut on the first twenty years of his life. He wonders whether this constant ache in his chest is because of his own grief, or if it's because of Fred, because he was hurting when he died, and this was just the residual pain. He likes to think it's because of Fred because that still means that there's something left of Fred in the world.

Ginny keeps on holding onto him, her small hands gently rubbing his neck. George finds more solace in this than he expected, though it's still just so unfamiliar from the Ginny that he knew that he finds himself continually shivering. They don't talk, and the silence is more reassuring than any words could have possibly been. Ginny decides that it's all right to proceed in telling him about the memorial.

"They're going to want you to talk," she says quietly. George stiffens. He's always known that the time for him to make a speech would come, but he's imagined it being his best man's speech, made to a group of admiring, giggling girls while Fred glares in the background, not a eulogy made in front of his weeping family. He's not even sure that he can form words about Fred, because they might end up being about him. They've shared everything for so long, even personalities, that George is finding it difficult to sort out where Fred ends and where George begins.

The portrait hole opens, and everyone tramps back in. His mother is levitating a plateful of food towards him, and though it undoubtedly smells heavenly to everyone else, eating is the furthest thing on George's mind. He looks straight at his mother and says "I'm not doing it." She looks confused for a moment, and then realization slowly dawns on her face. George feels a pang of loss yet again. It appears that he'll have to start explaining everything, seeing as Fred's not around to read his mind.

He can see Ginny shrug from out of the corner of his eye. His mother looks at him and kneels down next to Ginny. "Are you sure?" she asks quietly. "They're going to want someone to say something about everyone, and you were the person who…" Her voice trails off as tears fill her eyes. His father puts his hand on her shoulder and she grasps it tightly with her own. George wants to appreciate how hard this must be for them, losing a son, but he is still preoccupied with his own loss to worry about anyone else's.

There is something selfish about his grief, and he relishes in that fact. Growing up with six other siblings, three of those who were older brothers, and one of those who was his twin, George has had very little, if anything, that he could call his and no one else's. This horrible, aching feeling in his chest that spreads to every part of his body, this mental agony that he is in-this is his and his alone. George is absurdly protective of this feeling of having his soul ripped apart, because he is sure that no one else around him has this feeling.

"George, it would mean a lot to everyone if you spoke," Bill quietly says. George looks up at Bill, who used to be so handsome before he was attacked. Bill likes to joke about it, say that now instead of classical good looks he has more "rugged" charm, but George knows the truth-he and Bill are maimed. "And after all, you knew him the best…anyone else would just be wrong."

George stared straight into Bill's eyes, the man who had become almost a second father to him, and found only pain shining in them, almost as raw as the pain that he felt. Inexplicably, he felt himself nodding and a faint smile graced Bill's scarred face.

"After the service they're going to let the families take…well, we're all going home for the funerals," his mother told him quietly, her hand gently rubbing his shoulder in circular patterns. George's stomach immediately twisted into a thousand unpleasant shapes, as he comprehended what would happen when they went home. Suddenly, although he could hardly bear the place anymore, he never wanted to leave Hogwarts, because leaving Hogwarts would mean only one thing-eternal separation.

George nods, his mind a million miles away, away from the Gryffindor common room, away from Hogwarts. He tries to find a happy memory in his mind, but they all elude him, almost as if he was in a dementor's presence. He senses his family move away from him, and then feels the couch depress as someone else sits beside him.

"If you want me to, I'll talk tomorrow instead of you," Angelina says softly. George looks at her to see that though her face is impassive her deep brown eyes are full of tears. As he watches her however, her faces loses any semblance of vulnerability-her eyes harden into that glint that he remembers when she was particularly adamant about having her way, and her lips purse in determination.

"No, I should do it," George mumbles lowly. Bill was right-no one else was qualified, and if George heard anyone, even Angelina, talking about Fred, he might just rush up to the podium and beat them senseless. "I'm going to go to practice," he says, and gets up from the couch. He walks out of the common room, with no clear path in his mind. All he wants is to get far away from Angelina. Once he's in the corridor, he pauses, and then sets off with a firm destination in mind. Not to see Fred, although he knows that his feet will eventually take him that way-no, this time he has to see where it happened.

At first it's difficult to discover just where it happened: there are so many gaping holes in the wall that George wonders how they're ever going to make this place whole again, but remembering Percy's sobbing description, and drawing on his own knowledge of the school, he soon finds the corridor.

Rubble is scattered all over the floor, and sunlight shines in from a giant hole in the outer wall. George looks carefully at the stones littering the floor, and feels his stomach turn over when he notices a small, dark stain, almost a burgundy colour, on the floor. He kneels down, gently rubbing his fingertip over it. He tries to feel something, a spirit maybe, or at least some form of acknowledgement, but the corridor is just that-an empty, ravished hallway. George slowly pushed himself up and then whirled around when he heard light footsteps behind him.

His hand automatically groped for his wand and pointed it at the newcomer. "What the hell are you doing here?" he snarled at Draco Malfoy. Malfoy's wand is pointed at his face, though George notices his hand shaking slightly. He doesn't care. All he knows is that here's a Death Eater who somehow wasn't killed last night, and he needs to be brought to justice. But he doesn't want to just Stun and capture. No, he wants to kill, to kill everyone who might have had the least part in killing Fred.

Malfoy must have read the intention in his eyes, because he turns and runs in the opposite direction. It takes George a second to catch on, but he is soon sprinting right after Malfoy, the blood pounding in his ears as his footsteps echo through the hallway. All he can think of is Malfoy after Cedric Diggory died, crowing about Voldemort's return. He imagines that smirking face when he found out that Fred died, and he gains a huge burst of speed.

"Come on you little bastard!" he roars, the same fierce joy seizing him now as it did last night, as he gives his senses entirely over to rage. For a moment there is nothing but the chase, nothing but the certainty in his brains that his strides are longer than Malfoy's; that the pale boy cannot outstrip him for very long…

"George no!" someone screams, and Malfoy turns his head to see how far behind him George is. George feels the beginning sparks of triumph-he is very nearly behind him now. He dodges a spell that Malfoy sends over his shoulder, temporarily losing his balance. By the time that he has regained it, a jet of red light has hit him square in the chest. George looks down as the world stops for a moment. _Bugger,_ he thinks, as, for the second time that day, he falls down to the ground unconscious.

_"Get out of the way!" someone cries throughout the train. Fred and George look curiously up from the game of Exploding Snap that they were having. _

_"What in the world?" Katie asks, getting up and opening the compartment door. As soon as she does a wave of cold air hits them, making them suck in their breath and shiver. _

_"Shut the door!" Lee yells as the cold becomes close to unbearable. When it appears that Katie has been frozen George gets up to shut the door, but the second that he sticks his head outside he understands why Katie is frozen. The cold air hits his lungs, and he's fairly certain that it's punctured a hole in one of them. But that's not the worst part-no, the worst part is hearing Percy's voice jeering at him, a memory that he's tried to suppress from when he was only five._

_"You'll never be a proper wizard; I bet you won't even get into Hogwarts!" George looks up at him, his eyes wide and hurt. All he did was accidentally set fire to Percy's desk, but this set Percy off on a rage at him that's ended with George in tears. _

_"Shut up Percy," George mutters, but seven year old Percy is on a righteous rampage and nothing, save the ocean rushing in and swallowing him up will stop him now._

_"And if you do get into Hogwarts, I know you won't be good enough to get into Gryffindor," Percy sneers. "You'll have to go to Slytherin with the Malfoys!" George knows that to be put into Slytherin is a fate worse than death and Malfoy is the deepest insult that the Weasley boys can call each other. _

_"Shut up Percy!" Fred suddenly roars, and he appears beside George, a four foot two avenging angel, all fury and red hair. George feels a sudden rush of gratitude that Fred is never that far from his side as the twins now turn to face Percy. Percy does not appear intimidated by the twins standing side by side. _

_"Oh, you're not better than him," Percy scoffs, and Fred folds his arms viciously. "You'll both be expelled from Hogwarts before your second year and sent to live with the Muggles." _

_George again wonders why Percy hates him and Fred so. It's not like they _really_ go out of their way to make him mad, normally it just happens by proxy. But Percy has decided to make Fred and George's lives miserable, so Fred and George retaliate the only way that they know how-by making his life miserable. Unfortunately, George has forgotten just how vicious Percy can be when sufficiently angered. Worst of all, their mother always seems to take his side, for reasons unknown. It is at times like this that George knows that Fred is the only one on his side, and he is the only person on Fred's side. _

_While Percy's words serve to make George want to curl up into himself and die, they only anger Fred. Fred launches himself at Percy, his small fists flying around his older brother. Percy's yells soon attract their mother and she-_

_"George!" he hears Fred shout. George looks beside him to see Fred standing there, his face unnaturally pale. Fred has pushed Katie out of the way and is trying to see what is on the train, though George has a sickening feeling that he already knows. _

_"Dementors," he whispers to Fred. Fred looks at him, his blue eyes wide with fear as he slowly nods. George remembers something his father said about dementors being posted at Hogwarts, but he was much too busy trying to find rude words that began with the letters 'H' and 'B'. _

_Someone bursts into their compartment with a wild yell and George looks down to see who it is. His lip curls in disgust when he sees Malfoy and his cronies huddling in the corner. Angelina moves away from them with a sound of disgust. _

_"What's he doing here?" Oliver asks, looking like he would very much like to hit Malfoy over the head with his copy of Quidditch Through the Ages. _

_"The dementors," Malfoy finally whispers, his grey eyes wide and frightened. Somehow, George can't find it within himself to be horrible to Malfoy, though he dearly wishes that he could. "They're on the train…they came into our compartment…" he lets his sentence end in a shudder. George glances at Fred to see that his snarl has diminished somewhat, though this could be less to do with pity and more to do with the fact that something huge, something deathly, is moving towards their compartment, no doubt drawn by the presence of so many people. George had known that it was probably a bad idea to try to fit him, Fred, Alicia, Angelina, Katie, Lee, and Oliver in the same place. _

_He feels Fred shrink back against him, and George wishes that he had his broom with him so that he could just fly out of the window. There's a strange keening, whimpering noise that he hopes is coming from Malfoy, but is, he realizes with some shame, coming from the back of his throat. Percy's sneers become louder in his mind, joined by his mother's reaffirmations that he and Fred will never be proper wizards, that they'll have their wands snapped by age thirteen, the night when Ginny had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets, and now he sees Mr. Malfoy's face sneering down at him and Fred when they accompanied their father to a Ministry event…he sees the contempt and dislike in his face and feels tiny, insignificant…_

"George?" Someone is lightly slapping his face and he moans, and tries to bat their hand away as he slowly comes to. He cracks open his eyes and sees the stone ceiling of Hogwarts above him. Oh no. Not again. There's only so much humiliation he can take in one day. He looks around at the people who've found him, and his stomach settles down somewhat. Oliver and Bill. Well, it could have been worse. He doesn't know why he's worried, seeing as Fred would be the one that would never let him forget fainting and being Stunned by Draco Malfoy, but there's still an overwhelming need within him to keep up appearances, which means that Weasleys never faint, and they most certainly never get stunned by a little git like Malfoy. Speaking of…

"Where is he?" George snarls, trying to get up. He's restrained by Bill's gentle but powerful hand on his shoulder, effectively trapping him on the floor. George pushes on Bill's hand, but eventually gives up. Years of struggling have taught him that Bill always gets his way when it comes to winning physical struggles.

"George, you just need to calm down," Bill tells him. George can sense that there's something that Bill's not telling him, but he doesn't care. He just wants to hunt down Malfoy and pound his face into the rubble.

"Calm down?" George roars. "There's a Death Eater running around Hogwarts, in case you hadn't noticed! Why aren't you chasing after him?" A shadow passes over Bill's face and George looks at him beseechingly, trying to figure out why Bill, Bill who he trusts almost more than anyone else in the world, isn't hunting down Malfoy and strangling him with his bare hands.

"Harry doesn't want us to bother the Malfoys," Bill says quietly. Oliver makes a small noise of disagreement from beside George and George feels a sudden upsurge of affection and respect for his former Quidditch Captain. "Apparently Narcissa Malfoy saved his life in the forest."

"But…but…it's because of Malfoy that Dumbledore's dead!" George mouthed helplessly. "Are you joking? They get to get away with torture and killing people, all just because of the fact that Harry doesn't want them to be arrested?"

"Leave it George," Bill says quietly. "Leave it!" he says sharper, when George opens his mouth to argue more vehemently. "There's a lot to sort out-there's still Death Eaters to round up, the Ministry's still got to be taken down, and we have to…we have to have the funerals," he finishes quietly. He stands up and seizes George's hand and pulls him up, mercilessly ignoring the small whimper of pain that escapes from George.

Oliver was standing on the left side of George and he muttered something that George could not quite catch. "What?" he asked, inclining his head so that his right ear could catch what Oliver was saying. George saw Oliver's eyes perform the familiar sweep of the hole in the left side of his head; saw the revulsion in his eyes as he contemplated the injury. Oliver spoke again, raising his voice slightly.

"I said that Harry's a bloody idiot." Oliver sadly smiles at George, who smiles back, the muscles in his face almost screaming in protest. "We'll sort out everyone in the end, Malfoy included."

Bill, George, and Oliver climb back up the stairs up to the bloody common room once more. George is beginning to be rather sick of this room, not in the least because it is becoming rather too small and smelly. This time it is better, because everyone gives him a wide berth, anxious not to have an incident like the one that had occurred earlier.

George ends up on the floor, his back resting against Charlie's shins. Charlie, his mother, his father, and Percy are sitting on the couch closest to the fire. Ginny is sitting beside him, Harry beside her, and Ron and Hermione are stretched out in front of the fire. There is occasional soft conversation, usually about nothing important, certainly nothing that George wants to talk about. Everyone leaves him alone and he suspects that Ginny has something to do with this careful neglect. He is grateful for it, because it allows him to delve into his memories as he stares deeply into the flickering fire.

It's strange, but even when he's sitting; surrounded by his family and the defenders of Hogwarts, when the feeling of comfort has descended upon the Gryffindor common room like a warm blanket-he is unhappier than ever. Because without Fred at his side, he has never been more alone.


	3. Chapter Three: In Memoriam

The explosion was deafening, catapulting both twins off of the bed and across the room. George could barely hear Fred's cry over the sound of their papers and assorted belongings falling back to the floor. He fell on his back and took a moment to gather his breath before he pushed himself up.

"Fred?" he called out, squinting into the smoke that the explosion had caused. This was certainly a bad way to start off the fireworks. By his calculations, this was the worst explosion yet. He coughed as he breathed in a little too much smoke and tried to fan some of it away. "Fred?"

His groping hand touches soft flesh. He feels his way up the fabric of a jumper sleeve until he touches Fred's face, and he fans some of the smoke away so that he can actually see what he is doing. When he looks at Fred he feels a rather large panic seize him. His eyes are closed and his mouth hangs open. George begins to shake Fred violently in an attempt to wake him up.

"Come on, come on, come on, wake up!" He mutters in desperation, shaking Fred until his head lolls around on his shoulders. George stares at Fred's impassive face for seconds that stretch into decades, his heart racing throughout his chest, his fingers clutching the slightly itchy fabric of his Weasley jumper and he opens his mouth to scream for his mother.

Before he can do so, however, a hand clamps itself down on his mouth. George stares at Fred, his heartbeat beginning to slow as Fred's eyes crack open a quarter inch. "When they bury me," Fred rasps in what he obviously imagines a dying person to sound like, "make sure that they bury me with my face looking up at the sky and my feet pointed towards Honeydukes." George stares at him for several seconds, his tongue and throat and brain unable to form words.

Relief is flooding into him in waves, calming his brain and sending his breathing back to normal. Fred is all right, they're both all right, and everything's going to be OK…Fred winks up at him and starts to cackle. "I thought that you were going to start bawling there in a few seconds!"

This is entirely too much for George. Before he knows it, his hands have balled themselves up into fists and they are pounding furiously away at Fred's prostrate body. Fred quickly recovers, rolling away from George and attacking him, jumping up on top of him, his fists finding George's vulnerable ears. George finally manages to throw Fred off of him and then-

There is another explosion, but this one is infinitely worse. This one rips the curtain of heaven and earth apart and sends the entire world spinning into oblivion. Rocks fall all around George and he screams, his voice easily lost in the noise of the ending of the world.

And then his eyes are drawn to one sight and one sight only-the empty staring eyes, the limp hand dropping down to rest on the floor. And he is shaking Fred, and he knows that it's only a bad joke, that Fred will say something stupid and he'll have to hit him again, but this time Fred doesn't make a crack about Honeydukes, this time they're not in their bedroom with their Mum downstairs, they're at Hogwarts and Fred, he won't wake up, he won't move, he won't stir no matter how hard George is shaking him, and this time when he opens his mouth to scream, Fred doesn't move a muscle.

"George!" He wakes up, his eyes wild in the brightening dawn of the common room. Ginny is staring at him and George wonders whether or not it is his screams that have made everyone look so terrified. "George?" she asks as his heart slows, as the dread of the realization of what day this is sinks down upon him. Today is the memorial.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he says shortly, sitting up and running his hands through his hair. His back muscles stretch in protest; sleeping on the common room floor last night probably wasn't a good idea. Ginny looks like she's not convinced, but his grotesque, quick smile reassures everyone else, even his mother. George wonders whether she's just fooled herself into being happy, or whether she's actually convinced that he's all right and coming to terms with everything. "What's for breakfast?"

He sees Ginny deflate somewhat at this statement; it's the first time that he's expressed any interest whatsoever in food. He slowly pushes himself up and walks gingerly towards the portrait. "I'll meet the rest of you down there," he tells them over his shoulder. He remembers that he didn't used to be like this, didn't use to cherish the moments he was alone, didn't actively seek them out. As a matter of fact, he dreaded those moments, even though they were few and far between, and would always look for someone to spend nearly every single second of his time with. Of course, it wasn't like it was difficult finding someone to spend time with: he had a ready made companion from birth.

His footsteps echo in the empty hallways, though occasionally he sees people hurrying past him. He comes upon a knot of people, all discussing something in hushed whispers, though their faces look excited. Curious in spite of himself, he slows down so that he can catch what they're saying.

"Do you think she's going to talk today at the memorial? I mean, I think that she lost someone, maybe they're going to get her to talk."

"She should talk, just because of what she did. Mum can't stop talking about it; she said it was the bravest thing she's ever seen."

"You should hear Hannah go on about her. She thinks that she's better than Dumbledore and Merlin combined-but can you really blame her? I mean, Bellatrix Lestrange killed about half of her family."

George begins to feel a faint sense of pride as he realizes what they're talking about. He finally got the whole story, about how his mother dueled Bellatrix Lestrange to the death, succeeding where many others had failed. Of course, the Weasley boys had known all along that Molly Weasley was never someone to be trifled with, especially when it came to her children. It just took the rest of the world a little bit longer to figure it out.

"I mean, who would have thought that she would ever be killed by anyone, especially someone with six kids?"

George froze at this sentence, feeling like ice-cold water had been poured into his veins. He could feel his hands shaking as he quickly shoved them into his pockets in an attempt to not grab his wand and hex every single one of them. His breathing quickened and he slowly turned around to face the speakers.

"Seven," he said quietly, though he could hear the tremor of emotion in his voice. They all looked curiously at him, some with a faint gleam of recognition in their eyes. "She's got seven." Before he could do anything that he would later regret he stalked away, though he could hear the harsh whispers that began as soon as he was too far away to determine words.

George walked until he came to an all-too familiar door-Filch's office. The number of times that he had been in here, every single time with Fred at his side, both of them snickering as Filch ranted at them about the punishments that he would inflict, had this been his school-George had lost count about halfway through first year. A sudden desire seizes him, to enter into the forbidden and see something which he knows exists, but has never seen fully with his own eyes. George looks around hesitantly before pushing open the door.

Filch is not here, he is probably dashing about the castle, gaping at all of the considerable damage done. Perhaps he's already died from a heart attack brought on by seeing the complete and utter ruin that the castle is in, George wonders, as he walks towards the file cabinets, in which lie the records of the greatest troublemakers in Hogwarts history.

He finds what he is looking for near the bottom. A small snort escapes his nose as he looks at the writing on the outside of the drawer. _Weasley, Fred and George._ An entire drawer, devoted entirely to him. He doesn't think that any other student in Hogwarts can claim such an honor. He pulls open the drawer and pulls out a piece of paper at random.

_Name: Fred and George Weasley. Crime: Befouling the castle by enchanting thirty pairs of muddy boots to walk around the floors, walls and ceilings. Suggested Punishment: Hanging from ceiling by ankles for two days, no meals. Punishment: Loss of five points from Gryffindor and a lecture from Professor McGonagall. Notes: Will make sure to work harder next time. Will achieve flogging by end of the year._

For the first time in days George was laughing, though it was the hysterical kind of laughter that was most often followed by weeping. He remembered when he and Fred had done that, it had been in October of their second year. All throughout the rest of the month they could hardly turn around without having Mrs. Norris turn up behind them, her yellow eyes glaring at them, just daring them to make a move. It was all right though: within two weeks they had invented catnip that had an unfortunate effect upon a cat's digestive systems when ingested. Alicia's cat had been banned from the Gryffindor common room for almost a month.

George flips through some more pages, smiling appreciatively as he remembers the careful planning that they put into every single one of those acts. All right, some of them didn't require careful planning, but those were just their first pranks, when they were young and unskilled. They soon moved onto bigger and better things though-after all; it doesn't take a genius to drop twenty Dungbombs in a crowded corridor just before lunch.

When he shifts and feels his leg muscles burn George realizes just how much time has passed. Maybe Filch really has died. He puts the papers back into the drawer, begins to shut it, and then pauses. An idea has just occurred to him, possibly one of the greatest that he has ever had. For a second he is astonished at his brilliance and automatically turns to his right to share it, but there is the familiar sinking sensation as he sees that there is no one standing beside him. He wonders if he'll ever get used to this, this feeling of abandonment and loss.

He wanders into the Great Hall almost by accident, his eyes automatically straying to where the High Table used to be, the place where they have now laid the bodies. He wonders how anyone is supposed to eat while looking at that and feels what little appetite he did have leaves as his eyes automatically pick out the vivid red hair. He looks at Fred and then looks at his family and now more than ever feels the gaping hole that has been torn in his life.

He remembers a typical breakfast with Fred, watching Fred shove enormous amounts of food into his mouth at an alarming rate while trying to get the best bits before he did. Growing up with three older brothers cemented the desire to eat as much as he could as fast as he could, and hardly anything can break him of the habit of eating everything in sight within four seconds or less. Of course now he just takes a fork in his hand and half-heartedly stabs at the plump sausages and perfectly brown toast. He would rather bathe a Blast-Ended Skrewt than eat much of anything. However, under Ginny's and his mother's watchful eyes he dutifully swallows his breakfast down, noting their pleased looks that say _"See, he's coming around, everything's going to be all right,"_ and he stubbornly digs down deeper into himself, where there are no sisters watching his every move, where his mother does not gaze upon him every second, trying to find the son that she lost. There is only Fred, only his favorite person in the world.

George senses more than sees Lee sitting next to him, his silent presence doing nothing more than putting him on edge. It's strange, but now that he thinks about it, he can't remember having a whole conversation with just Lee. It was always him, Fred and Lee talking. Come to think of it, there's hardly anyone that he remembers having a conversation with, just the two of them. Fred and George would have a conversation with someone or, on the off-chance that Fred wasn't at his side, George would start talking to someone and Fred would materialize thirty seconds later, a whirlwind of wit and wonder.

A cloud of awkward silence descends upon him and Lee, but George chooses to ignore it. Perhaps Lee will get the message and toddle on off to happier people, people whose entire lives have not crashed down around their ears-oops, ear. Lee is rescued from his predicament by Katie, who comes and sits on the left side of George. George now has the unmistakable feeling of being surrounded, and wants nothing more than to flee. His foot moves up against the drawer that he stole from Filch's office and he feels calmer.

"Are you ready for this afternoon?" Katie asks seriously. George wishes that everyone would stop asking him if he was all right, or if he's prepared what he's going to say, or any of the other questions that they ask because they can't just _talk_ to him anymore. In some way he understands their predicament-he's finding it increasingly difficult to talk to anyone. He loses his train of thought and there is no one else there anymore to pick it up for him.

"Yeah," he grunts, hoping that this would be enough of a hint. Lee gets it. He turns around and starts talking quietly to Alicia. George feels grateful that Lee understands a little bit, at least enough to know that right now he just wants to be alone. Katie however, either doesn't get the fact that he desperately wants to be left alone, or she is ignoring it and trying to force him to talk. Whatever her motivation, George just really wishes that she would go away.

He almost thinks that she's gone away when she doesn't talk for a while and he glances towards his left. His heart sinks as he sees that she's staring intently at the spot where his left ear used to be. No matter how many jokes he makes about it, no matter how long it's been since it happened, he still feels a jolt whenever he looks at his reflection and sees his strangely lopsided face. His mother begged him for a few days to wear a bandage over the hole, probably just to make everyone else feel better, but he refused, mostly because Fred was getting such a huge laugh out of the entire ordeal. It made him feel better, like it was really just a huge cosmic joke and he and Fred were already planning retaliation.

George flinched as he felt a strange sensation on the side of his head. His eyes darted to the side to see Katie curiously stroking his hair out of the way. He'd deliberately grown his hair long so as to help cover the gaping hole in the side of his head. Even though it was no longer possible to look completely identical Fred had done the same thing, probably out of habit more than anything else. She finally moves his hair aside to reveal the wound that still makes him uncomfortable, that ensures that he never hears more than a hollow echo of anything around him.

He shudders at the presumptive touch, but fights the urge to lean into her gentle fingers. There is comfort in her fingers, comfort of a sort that no one else has been able to offer him. Her fingers probe the edge, making George shiver and veer away from her.

"Does it still hurt?" she asks quietly. George shakes his head swiftly, trying to erase the memory of her touch quickly. The only touches he wants to remember are those which he will never feel again-the slight shove of Fred's shoulder against his when Fred wants him to look at something, the tight grasp of Fred's hand on his forearm when they wait to see what's going to happen next, Fred's arm thrown easily around his shoulders as they think about their triumphs. He can still feel the slight pressure of Fred's arm and concentrates hard on that feeling, willing more weight and substance to his memory. But his scalp still tingles with the memory of Katie's fingers moving through his hair.

Katie suddenly gets up from the table, her face flushed as she stares down at her feet. "I guess…I guess I'll see you later," she mutters desperately and almost sprints out of the Great Hall. George almost looks after her, but at the last moment stops the movement of his head and keeps his eyes staring straight ahead at the wood grain on the table.

He doesn't understand why he should feel so bothered by what just happened. After all, he and Katie have shared much more intimate touches than that. She was the first girl that he kissed, the first girl that he seriously dated, and the object of many hurried and bungled attempts at groping out behind the broom shed when he was sixteen. He and Katie went to the Yule Ball together and dated for a few months after that, but eventually the novelty of walking down the corridors with her wore off, and he had to admit to himself that Hogsmede visits were much more interesting when he was perusing Zonko's with Fred rather than when he was sitting at the Three Broomsticks with Katie. Thus ended their brief relationship, with both of them on good terms with each other.

He did remember the horror that he felt when he heard that she had been attacked. He and Fred had gone to St. Mungo's, nearly hexed the witch behind the counter, and stormed into Katie's room. He remembered the feeling of helplessness as he stared down at her prone body, normally so vibrant and active. He can recall that feeling quite well, as it is the same one that he has whenever he thinks about Fred, which is every waking moment.

He shivers and shakes his head violently, trying to bring himself back to the present and banish all thoughts of Katie from his mind. He is confronted with another problem however, and this might be a bigger problem than the lingering thoughts of Katie. Angelina sits across from him, her eyes tired and her face drawn. She looks as if she has not slept well the past few nights, like she has spent entirely too much time crying away from everyone. It is much the same look that he himself has.

"You sure that you're up for this?" she asks him brutally, and George is actually grateful for her brusque tone. At the very least, it's better than the hushed tone that everyone has lately been using around him. For a second he almost feels like a real person again. Then that moment is gone and he's back to his quivering, half-state, and everyone should be using hushed voices when they speak to him, because it's not that much different than talking to a corpse really.

"Yeah," he answers shortly, and wishes that he could think of something witty to say, something that would make that skeptical look on Angelina's face disappear as well as make him feel better, but his mind simply won't work. Perhaps it's because it was Fred who always began the jokes and he delivered the punchlines. Maybe it was the other way around. Either way, it's impossible for him to deliver the rapid fire wit that the Weasley twins were known for.

Angelina makes a small noise that might have been a scoff and George breaks through his self-pity to look angrily at her. "I'd be a damn sight better than you," he snaps, and immediately his anger fades as her deep brown eyes glisten with tears. It suddenly hits him that this is Fred's girl and as such, she is surrounded by a kind of mystic energy to him. If Angelina was good enough for Fred then she deserves the utmost respect from him, and as Fred's girlfriend, she is one of the last remaining links to Fred that he has.

"Sorry," he mutters, actually meaning the words. Angelina meets his eyes and for the first time George notices that the whites of her eyes are tinged with red and that her nose is a little too swollen. Perhaps there's someone else out in the world that is missing Fred almost as he much as he misses him. He stares at Angelina and thinks that there is one person who he would willingly spend time with in this world. Well, two, counting Ginny.

"You're probably right," she mutters, and there is a strange kind of regret in her eyes. George recognizes the emotion, because he's feeling it as well. It is a regret that tells him that he should have said something else to Fred the last time he saw him, at least something cleverer than "You've got cobwebs in your hair". What a stupid thing to say to him. He should have said something like "Mischief's never managed" or fired off a snappy saying at the Death Eaters. He wishes that he could have had more time before the battle just to bask in Fred's presence, at Hogwarts, quite possibly the scenes of their greatest triumphs.

They sit in silence, the rest of the table giving them a respectful distance. George wonders why they are so much different than anyone else. After all, nearly every single person in the Great Hall has either lost someone, or known someone who died, yet they all look relatively happy. Their faces are drawn yes, they look entirely too pale to be healthy, but there is an air of contentment that hangs over everyone, even his own family that he simply cannot feel no matter how hard he tries. He doesn't care that Voldemort's been defeated. It isn't really a fair trade, the way that he looks at it, Voldemort for Fred. As horrible as it is to think it, as apocalyptically evil as it may be, he would much rather have both Fred and Voldemort alive. Everything in his world would be rather pleasant at that point.

Finally the bell tolls out noon, and as one, the hall rises and files out onto the grounds. George feels the weight of the box in his arms, and he brings it closer to his chest, its sharp corners digging into his biceps and stomach. Angelina walks beside him, her footsteps falling in time perfectly with his. He wonders if this is just something that she's naturally good at, walking in step with people, or whether she just had a lot of practice walking with Fred and that carries over into walking with him.

Thousands of chairs have been magicked onto the lawn, though George doesn't think that they'll be big enough to seat all these people that have turned up. He didn't know that there were that many wizards in the world, let alone fighting against Voldemort in Britain. There seems to be no order to the seating, he sees teachers and mothers sitting next to each other, Ravenclaws sitting beside Hufflepuffs. It is odd and George violently wishes for the old world back, the one where everyone knew exactly where to sit along the carefully drawn out lines that were there since before they were all born.

He sits with his family, staring blankly ahead, dreading what's to come. It begins much in the way that he thought it would: Harry gets up to speak to everyone. He looks smaller than he did last night, pushing his glasses further up on the bridge of his nose and nervously shifting his weight. George suddenly recalls the tiny boy of eleven that couldn't get his trunk onto the train and wonders at how far they've all come since then.

"Erm…good morning," Harry finally says, his voice magnified to one hundred times its normal volume. George wonders how he could face Voldemort fearlessly just a few nights ago and yet still have qualms about public speaking. It must be one of those things that he will never understand.

"Last night, our world was finally made safe for us again," he says, relaxing slightly and standing up straighter. "But it never would have been so without these brave people, whom we honor today. Their sacrifice was made for the world, so that they could ensure a better place for the rest of us." Harry pauses, swallows once and continues. "I'm sorry to say that I didn't know everyone personally, but I feel your loss, because it is our loss that these lives were taken from us so tragically soon." He really must have been practicing somewhere, because he's very good at this speech-giving. George can see his mother wipe tears from her eyes and his father is futilely patting her knee.

"We thank them from the bottom of our hearts and know that though our lives will go on, they will be forever empty without those that we love in them," Harry finishes, and goes to sit back down beside Ginny. George bites his lip as Kingsley gets up to speak. He does not say a prepared speech; instead he pulls out a piece of parchment and reads a name off of it. It is no one that George recognizes, but a sobbing witch gets up and walks forward. Her speech about her lost husband makes George's heart twist as he realizes that in perhaps only an hour that will be him standing up in front of this crowd, talking about the most personal thing that has ever happened to him. He must have been mental to agree to do this.

George does not recognize any of names until one Terry Boot is called. With a sharp jolt of recognition he quickly puts a face with the name, bought a purple Pygmy Puff and several Snackboxes almost a year ago, was in Dumbledore's Army with him. A woman, no doubt Terry's mother, gets up and speaks about him, his intelligence, how proud he was when he got his O.W.L. results, and the lengths he went to in order to fight the Carrows' hold on Hogwarts.

His stomach gives another nasty lurch when Colin Creevy's name is called out. He always liked Colin, even though he was a bit of a twit, he was good-natured, and would always provide a decent cover if you asked him. This isn't fair, George thinks blindly, his mind racing down paths that he's never tread before, hoped that he would never see. They were all so young…sixteen, twenty, it's just too damn young to die…

He swallows hard when Lupin's name is called out, remembering his quiet, troubled former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. The summer that they were staying in Grimmauld Place, Remus and Sirius, recognizing two kindred spirits, had taken Fred and George under their wing, telling them everything about their exploits when they were at school. True, most of their knowledge had been absorbed already in the form of the Marauder's Map (Fred had whimpered with glee and almost peed himself to discover that they were talking to Mr. Moony and Mr. Padfoot themselves), but there were still pranks to be rehashed, hints to be given and lessons to be learned. It had certainly been a most illuminating summer-George for one, had no idea before then what exactly happened when you shoved someone into a Vanishing Cabinet.

Surprisingly, it is Professor McGonagall, looking more somber than George has ever seen her, who gets up to speak for Remus Lupin. George reflects on this, trying to decide why he is surprised that McGonagall would speak for Lupin. Could it be that he believes that McGonagall no longer has emotions besides anger and frustration? It's possible. That was all the emotion she could muster up whenever she was lecturing him and Fred about another one of their adventures.

Her voice shakes as she begins speaking about a quiet boy whose greatest wish in life was to be liked and accepted for who he was, not what fate had forced him to be. A faint smile graces her face as she recounts some of the legends associated with the Marauders and how nervous he was at graduating. She becomes serious once more, recounting the difficulties he had once out of school at finding a job and keeping a job. George thinks about Lupin's robes, eternally shabby, even worse than his father's, and his prematurely lined face and grey hair and cannot repress a sharp stab of anger at the world. Her voice breaks altogether when she speaks about his pride at fathering a child and his joy at the prospect of raising him. She sits down and buries her face in her hands.

A woman that George doesn't recognize gets up, cradling a small child in her arms. Another dull blow to George's stomach-this must be Tonk's mother. And that, that small bundle in her arms…that must be their child, the one that will never know his parents beyond seeing the pictures of them. A sudden, surprising surge of pity rises up through him, stopping somewhere in his throat and staying here, leaving a huge lump that is impossible to swallow down or cough up, not that he would try. At least he had time with Fred, though that might make it worse in the end, knowing just exactly what he's lost. But he still has the memory of his smile, the crinkles around his eyes as he tried on his staff robes at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes for the first time, his laugh as George tried on his first set of dress robes.

George can't force himself to listen to the woman's voice, telling everyone just how special Tonks was, because it's too incredibly painful. He knows these people, he _knows_ them, and he can't listen to people describe them like they were strangers. He looks around at the gathered people and isn't surprised to see that most of them are total and complete strangers. His heart crumples up and drops to around his anklebones when it suddenly occurs to him that he will be speaking to all of them in a matter of minutes. And sure enough, all too soon, the name Fred Weasley is called out to the audience, and George forces himself up and concentrates solely on putting one foot in front of the other in a steady procession towards certain demise.

All the way there he thinks about the weight of the box in his arms, focuses all of his attention on the corners that are digging into his stomach, because then he won't have to think about what lies just a few steps ahead. His feet walk towards the podium, but he is no longer connected to them. He is a wraith, floating in mid-air, and the only thing that is keeping him tethered to this plane of existence at all is the heavy box in his arms. If that was to disappear, then so would George.

He finally reaches the podium and looks out over the audience. As if by some strange link, his eyes automatically find Angelina in the crowd. Tears are pouring down her face and George can see, even from where he's standing, that she is violently shaking. His eyes find his family, easily recognizable by the vivid hair. His mother is sobbing unrestrainedly into his father's shoulder. Bill is gripping Fleur's hand tightly, his scarred face tense and set. It is obvious that he is willing himself not to begin crying. Charlie's hand is gripping Percy's forearm almost violently, while Percy's lip keeps on trembling, and he has to keep taking off his glasses and wiping them clean. Tears are leaking out of Ron's eyes, and he wipes them off with the back of his hand, not even bothering to loosen his grip on Hermione's hand. Ginny is staring down at her lap, her face hidden, but her thin shoulders are shaking. Harry is beside her, his hand steady and firm on her knee, but his face is stricken and pale with horror. George looks at them and feels the words that he was about to say falter and die on the tip of his tongue.

He stutters, mumbles, and then his eyes catch something, a flash of red hair at the very edge of the seated mass. No one else sees it, he is sure of that. He stares, though he already knows exactly what it is. Fred stares at him, a challenging look in his eyes, a tiny smile flitting around the corners of his mouth. His arms are folded defiantly, and the look in his eyes says plainer than words could _"You can't do this, you wanker." _

_Shut up Fred, _George thinks automatically, and suddenly the words are tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop them. "Most of you already know me," he begins, and his brain is no longer really connected to his mouth, his tongue and throat are just making up words and his mouth is remaining open, spewing them out like an enormous fountain. "At the very least you've probably enjoyed some of our products." Amazingly enough, there is an appreciative titter among the crowd. George sees that the corners of his mother's mouth are twitching upwards, despite the tears still falling freely down her face. "And if you know me, even in the slightest, then you knew Fred."

He continues on, his voice stronger now, a warm conviction burning comfortably in his chest. He is sure now, and every so often he glances up, just to reassure himself that the figure is still standing there. Fred nods encouragingly every once in a while when George pauses to take a breath, the sneer now replaced by a genuine smile. "I think that everyone would agree that knowing Fred made your life just that much better. He was one of the only bright spots in these times of despair, one of the few reminders that we had left that you had to keep on at least trying to find the humor in life." He should feel grief, he should be sobbing like a boy, but right now all he wants to do is just to tell everyone how wonderful Fred was. Later tonight there will be time for tears, there will be time for breakdowns and for despair. Right now, it is about erecting a legacy that will never be torn down.

"But I know that he wouldn't want to be remembered by long boring speeches about what a great person he was. This is exactly how he would like to be remembered." George reaches down, opens the box and withdraws a paper at random. He glances over it and tearfully smiles before beginning to read aloud. "Name: Fred and George Weasley. Crime: Attempting to enter the Forbidden Forest. Suggested punishment: Two weeks worth of dentions. Punishment Recieved: Two nights of detention with Hagrid." Amazing as it is, a quiet murmur runs through the crowd, not one of incredible grief, but perhaps of laughter? A smile quirks George's lips as he departs from the present and moves entirely into the past. His fingers choose papers at random, each time recalling one of their many exploits. He remembers them all, even the most innocuous. Every now and then he glances up just be sure that Fred is still there. He is always standing there, a smile on his face, his shoulders occasionally shaking with laughter as George reads out a particularly amusing anecdote.

Finally the last piece of paper falls from George's numb fingers and he stares out at the crowd, all of whom have tears rolling down their faces, but the tears are moving their way past smiles, as strange as that is. His mother's eyes are bloodshot from crying, but her shoulders are shaking with laughter. George doesn't even realize that he's shaking until he attempts to walk, then his legs almost give out on him. He manages to totter back to his seat, a faint haze surrounding him.

Then he feels something soft, something warm, something wonderfully _real_. Angelina's arms curl around him, her face buried into his shoulder. Her tears begin to soak the fabric of his shirt, but George doesn't care, because for the first time in several days, physical contact doesn't make him want to shrivel and die. His arms reciprocate her action, wrapping tightly around her, his fingers tightly gripping the fabric of her shirt. He rests his head against hers, closing his eyes and trying to disappear within her.

"He's gone," he finally hears Angelina choking out. "He's really gone?" George hears her words, but does not understand them, can't she see that Fred is right there, that the smile has faded from his face now, but he is still wonderfully _there?_ His eyes meet Fred's, and for once Fred has no answer, no quick solution to solve everything, or at least make him laugh. Fred smiles sadly, shrugs, and turns away. George wants to call after him, wants to open his mouth, but Fred raises his hand in a small salute, and George understands that now is not the time.

"It's all right," he says instead to Angelina, his hand rubbing her shoulders. "It's going to be all right." Angelina doesn't speak again, but continues to hold him tightly until George starts to feel a little uncomfortable. This is Angelina, she's not supposed to be breaking down. Angelina Johnston could beat him senseless probably any day of the week. To see her acting this way is a little disturbing at the least.

George has no idea why he is saying that everything's going to be all right other than that's what people always say in situations like these. He wonders why, when it is perfectly clear to himself and Angelina at least, that nothing will ever be all right ever again. No matter how many times he sees Fred, feels him, remembers him, Fred will never _be _with him. But even this realization cannot make true to him, what is true to Angelina: Fred is really gone. Fred will never come back, they will never be able to hear Percy's roar of rage as they something truly horrible to him, they will never be able to tally up the inventory at the shop after a busy day and go up to the flat and plan a new product.

George cannot force his brain around this fairly basic fact of life. No matter how many memorial services he goes to, no matter how much time he spends in Great Hall with the bodies, no matter how often his mother's eyes water whenever they look at him, it still is not real to him. Perhaps it is the fact that he still sees Fred lingering around him, that he is able to relate anything to him, that every breath he breathes still feels like someone else is breathing it with him. He has not yet separated from Fred. He doesn't think that he ever will.

His family comes up to him, and Angelina finally separates from him, though her hand still clutches his forearm tightly. "George…" his mother says, her eyes still swimming with tears. "That was absolutely lovely." She hugs him, squashing his nose against her shoulder, and George idly wonders just how many times a day he can stand being embraced. "It would have been what he wanted."

George stiffens, and his mother knows that she's said something wrong. She tries to backpedal over her words, but the damage has been done already. "What he would have wanted?" George asks, wincing as his voice almost cracks. "What he would have wanted? Since when do any of you know anything about what he would have wanted?"

"Georgie, I didn't mean it like that," his mother tries to plead, but it is too late, and George has already stormed off. He doesn't know where his feet are taking him, but eventually he ends up at the Quidditch pitch, sprawled out on one of the seats. His eyes stare at the bright blue sky, and he thinks about how it is a travesty that the sun can shine on this day. It should have been overcast at the very least, not this, not a beautiful summer's day. A drop of sweat runs down the back of his neck and he irritably wipes it away, only to confront another one.

"Damn it all!" he finally explodes in a rage that comes from nowhere and inside himself at the same time. He wishes desperately that he had something to throw, but he stormed off with nothing. He thinks back on his conversation and feels ashamed, but yet he also feels horribly pleased at the hurt look on his mother's face. How dare she try and feel the same loss that he feels? No one will ever feel the same way that he does about losing Fred, and he wants to keep it that way. Because when his grief is that much more raw and painful, it shows that Fred is still a huge part of him. When the grief subsides and becomes less, then he will know that Fred has truly left him.

"Mum's crying now," a quiet voice tells him. George starts and turns around to see Ginny sitting behind him. Her eyes stare up at him in reproach. Deep inside him somewhere, this fact makes him shrivel in guilt and want to crawl back to his mother, mewling like a small child. That part is buried deep inside him however, and will not appear due to the unflattering rage that is seizing him at the presumption of them all.

"Sorry," he grunts, sensing that something needs to be said. Maybe Ginny will leave him alone now, let him sit and be miserable by himself. She settles down into the seat, her eyes scanning the bright sky, almost as if she were searching for a Snitch. Oh well. It was a long shot anyway, and Ginny bothered him less than most people did at the moment.

"Yeah, well," she sighed, biting her lower lip. "They're all trying really hard," she said after a short pause. "Mom, Dad, Bill…even Percy. They just don't know what to say."

"There's nothing to say," George snapped. How can you tell people that you're no longer who they thought you were, that a part of you has been ripped away? What do you say when the days look like they're never going to shine as brightly as they once did, when all of your hopes and dreams have been pulled out from under your feet?

He hadn't even thought of what would happen to the shop now, without Fred to help him. It seemed like such a trivial matter, but he concentrated on it, to keep his mind from going to even deeper and darker places. How could he run the shop by himself? Fred and he shared the work equally, in business, payroll, inventions…he didn't know how he was going to manage to do all the work by himself now-because he was firmly convinced on this fact-no other person would ever run Weasley's Wizard Wheezes but a Weasley twin. Anyone else doing the work that Fred had done, wearing the awful robes that Fred had picked out-that would be nothing less than sacrilege.

"I know," Ginny said simply, interrupting his thoughts. That was most likely a good thing, seeing as he was going nowhere good with those. "But we'd also appreciate it if you tried to understand how we feel as well…we haven't lost just one of you, we've lost both of you right now, and I don't think that Mum can survive losing another son," Ginny choked out, her last words becoming garbled and almost indistinct.

George can't help but think that Molly Weasley has already lost two sons. FredandGeorge, the twin phenomenon, has vanished from the earth, leaving only George, this sad husk of a human. Everyone should learn to accept that fact, and learn to accept the fact that George will never laugh again, never feel the need to move again, would like to cease breathing as soon as possible.

"Anyway, we're going home soon," Ginny said, pulling herself together with a loud sniff. "Not Auntie Muriel's either…we're going to the Burrow."

George feels a great longing to be at his own bedroom in the Burrow-it feels like it's been ages since he's been in his own room, even though it was only just a few short months ago.

They were all sitting at the dinner table, Ginny amongst them once more. Her face was drawn and pale, her eyes reflecting her mother's worried expression. There was a worry line in the middle of her forehead that did not used to exist, and her lips were pursed tightly.

"I just wish that I knew how they were all doing," she finally said quietly. "The last time that I saw Neville before the holidays he didn't look that good."

"He'll be all right," George said, though he knew that those words mean less and less nowadays. "I know he might not look it, but Neville's a tough kid. He'll find a way to make it."

"He's more than a tough kid, he's a bloody hero," Ginny said quietly, pride glowing through every word she spoke. "No one else had the courage to do what he did. I just feel bad that he's doing it alone."

"I don't want you at that school anymore," her mother said sternly. "What, with the Lovegood girl disappearing, and now we hear that they're actually using the Cruciatus Curse on students…" Molly Weasley shuddered, her eyes becoming wild and fearful for a split-second before she calmed down and turned into the busy, bustling housewife once more. "No child of mine will attend a sham like that."

Everyone turned around in terror when the door blasted open. George glanced at Fred as he leapt up to his feet, his hand already groping around inside of his robes for his wand. He relaxed when he saw his father standing in the door, but soon tensed up again as he saw the expression on his face.

"They're coming for us," his father choked out, holding onto the door in order to stay upright. Now everyone was on their feet, expressions of terrified inactivity on everyone's faces. George felt trapped, he felt like the ceiling was going to cave in at any moment. Hadn't they already run enough, didn't they deserve a break? The wedding, countless close shaves with Death Eaters since then…they couldn't even sit down to dinner without having Death knocking at their front door? He could feel Fred's arm against his, feel his small trembles through their sleeves. It comforted him somehow, knowing that Fred was just as scared as he was. It made him feel less alone at the very least.

"We've got to get out of here," his mother said, stating what should have been obvious from the beginning. All at once everyone began to move, but George had no idea of what they were trying to accomplish. It wasn't important to pack up kitchen utensils, they ahd to get everyone moving, had to get out there before the house was torn to shreds.

"Someone tipped me off this afternoon that they were going to do a raid on the house tonight. They're looking for Harry, Ron, and Hermione," his father shouted over the din of packing. "The ghoul trick's worked for a while, but it's beginning to wear thin, because "Ron" hasn't died, and he hasn't gotten better. If they look too closely at the ghoul then they'll know that's a fake, and then if they see Ginny here we're done for."

"Get out of here!" Fred finally bellowed, pushing his mother towards the door. "Mum, leave it, it doesn't matter…just go…" George saw what his mother was tyring to bring-that damn clock that she still carried around with her wherever she went, obsessively checking it every other minute to see if there'd been any change. George was secretly glad that it was getting left behind, was tired of his mother clutching desperately onto something that could or could not be true. Besides, even if Percy or Ron was lying dead in a ditch somewhere, would you really want to find that out from a clock?

Molly Weasley finally left the house, clutching Ginny close to her. With a loud crack, they both disappeared. Arthur Weasley pushed both of his twins towards the door. "Go to Auntie Muriel's hosue, that's where we said we'd go if the Burrow ever became compromised," he shouted at them. George nodded, feeling the world rushing around his head.

Fred seized his wrist and almost dragged him outside, away from safety, away from everything that he'd ever known. Their father followed them, disappearing almost the second that he was outside. Fred waited for a moment, glancing longingly back at the house.

"All of our order forms are in there…" he said sadly. George gaped at him for a moment. How could Fred care about the business at a time like this? Then Fred smiled sadly at him, and George understood perfectly. It was that last tentative hold on normalcy that was being ripped away, that last reminder that once they had lives and that they would again someday. "All of the recipes for inventions…They're all in there," Fred finished. He sighed deeply and then stiffened as he looked towards the sky. "What's that noise?"

"They're here," George said, cold horror gripping every muscle in his body. He'd thought that it was just a false alarm, thought that they'd be back home by tomorrow night…but it wasn't true, the Death Eaters were _here_, at their home, at the place where he had come during every holiday. It almost made him sick. Fred seemed frozen between wanting to flee and wanting to dash upstairs and get all of their papers. George took the decision out of his hands.

He gripped Fred's arm tightly, turned on the spot and felt himself vanish, took Fred with him, away from the Burrow, away from death, away from their childhood. At that moment, turning into nothingness with his brother beside him, George finally knew that he was a man.

"George?" Ginny asks him, putting her hand gently on his arm. He starts at the touch, staring at her with wild eyes that slowly return to their clouded, pained state that is sadly becoming normal. He wishes that he were not of age, that everything was as simple as Fred being an idiot and pretending to be hurt, that he could always run to his mother, that he always would have someone by his side. But that way of life has been ripped and torn from him. Instead, he has a void at his right side, a continuously empty space that should be always filled, always.

"It's time to go home," he says as he stands up and walks away from the Quidditch pitch.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

All right…I _really _meant to get the funeral in this chapter, but it just didn't work out that way, I'm so sorry. But next time for sure! I promise. Really.


End file.
